'Be on your guard, stay awake, because you never know when the time will come.' Mark 13:33-37

Today's Readings  

'Be on your guard, stay awake, because you never know when the time will come.' 

 

Mark 13:33-37

Reading 1, Is 63:16b-17, 19b; 64:2-7

¹⁶ After all, you are our Father. If Abraham will not own us, if Israel will not acknowledge us, you, Yahweh, are our Father, 'Our Redeemer' is your name from of old.

¹⁷ Why, Yahweh, do you let us wander from your ways and let our hearts grow too hard to fear you? Return, for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your heritage.

¹⁹ We have long been like those you do not rule, people who do not bear your name. Oh, that you would tear the heavens open and come down -- in your presence the mountains would quake,

² at the unexpected miracles you would do. (Oh, that you would come down, in your presence the mountains would quake!)

³ Never has anyone heard, no ear has heard, no eye has seen any god but you act like this for the sake of those who trust him.

⁴ You come to meet those who are happy to act uprightly; keeping your ways reminds them of you. Yes, you have been angry and we have been sinners; now we persist in your ways and we shall be saved.

⁵ We have all been like unclean things and our upright deeds like filthy rags. We wither, all of us, like leaves, and all our misdeeds carry us off like the wind.

⁶ There is no one to invoke your name, to rouse himself to hold fast to you, for you have hidden your face from us and given us up to the power of our misdeeds.

⁷ And yet, Yahweh, you are our Father; we the clay and you our potter, all of us are the work of your hands.

Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 80:2-3, 15-16, 18-19

 

² over Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh; rouse your valour and come to our help.

³ God, bring us back, let your face shine on us and we shall be safe.

¹⁵ protect what your own hand has planted.

¹⁶ They have thrown it on the fire like dung, the frown of your rebuke will destroy them.

¹⁸ Never again will we turn away from you, give us life and we will call upon your name.

¹⁹ God Sabaoth, bring us back, let your face shine on us and we shall be safe.

 

Gospel  

'Be on your guard, stay awake, because you never know when the time will come.' 

 

Mark 13:33-37

 

³³ 'Be on your guard, stay awake, because you never know when the time will come.

³⁴ It is like a man travelling abroad: he has gone from his home, and left his servants in charge, each with his own work to do; and he has told the doorkeeper to stay awake.

³⁵ So stay awake, because you do not know when the master of the house is coming, evening, midnight, cockcrow or dawn;

³⁶ if he comes unexpectedly, he must not find you asleep.

³⁷ And what I am saying to you I say to all: Stay awake!'

 

Reading 2, 1 Cor 1:3-9

³ Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

⁴ I am continually thanking God about you, for the grace of God which you have been given in Christ Jesus;

⁵ in him you have been richly endowed in every kind of utterance and knowledge;

⁶ so firmly has witness to Christ taken root in you.

⁷ And so you are not lacking in any gift as you wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed;

⁸ he will continue to give you strength till the very end, so that you will be irreproachable on the Day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁹ You can rely on God, who has called you to be partners with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.